A friend and I are seeking to compile a comprehensive list of Buddhist meditation styles across traditions. Consulting books, online resources, teachers, and personal practice, we have already encountered quite a few different techniques and approaches. Although we've created partial lists from our background research and our own meditation experience, we would like to hear what fellow practitioners can contribute. In addition to meditation styles, we're interested in other activities people consider part of their formal practice, including but not limited to activities practiced on retreat. We also intend to run a survey/poll about the most widely used forms of meditation in the near future.

So this inquiry consists of two main questions:

1. What are the various forms of meditation that are practiced in Buddhism - whether specific to a certain school or universal to all schools?

2. What other activities (apart from meditation) are typical of your practice and/or retreat settings?

If you are going to compose a list of meditation styles, I think you have to be aware of the danger not to take meditation out of context. With that I mean, out of context of the entire eightfold path. Meditation is modern word - bhavana is the word I think the Buddha would have used, which can be all sorts of things also outside of what we would consider as meditation nowadays.

And in that context, you'll also likely to leave out or misrepresent the teachers that teach meditation not as a particular (set of) techniques, but as a natural progression of the path, not really fitting to techniques. A common instruction with many teachers is "letting go". But is 'letting go' a technique or style? It's more a result of practice itself.

Also, while it's in line with your stated project to use Theravadan categories in this way, I wonder whether this isn't a good time to emphasize that satipatthana isn't really one sort of vipassana style; it actually cultivates both qualities - samatha and vipassana - and any other method, done well, is ultimately a version of satipatthana, in my experience.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]

Perhaps it would be more helpful to list practices/emphases under schools/traditions instead. Here's a rough outline (again, this is completely open to revision). Forgive me for enjoying list-making so much.

daverupa wrote:I see arupa jhana, but do not see rupa jhana, which is interesting.

The list of 40 kammatthana or meditation objects is derived from Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga, which enumerates the arupa jhanas but not the rupa jhanas. Personally, I would not include either the rupa or arupa jhanas as "forms" of meditation, but as "results" or "attainments." Yet I can see where if one was included (arupa jhanas), it would make sense to include the other (rupa jhanas).

daverupa wrote:Also, while it's in line with your stated project to use Theravadan categories in this way, I wonder whether this isn't a good time to emphasize that satipatthana isn't really one sort of vipassana style; it actually cultivates both qualities - samatha and vipassana - and any other method, done well, is ultimately a version of satipatthana, in my experience.

Likewise, I would not classify anapanasati as exclusively samatha, but as either vipassana or samatha (and often both) depending on the context. My personal practice is based largely on yuganaddha, the cultivation of both qualities in tandem. The list, however, is intended to be as comprehensive as possible. One may notice that kayagatasati is included twice, under both samatha and vipassana. The same adjustment can be made for satipatthana and anapanasati as the list is updated.

I was taught "blank mind" meditation, to tame and slow down the thoughts, the object was to stop thinking entirely and just perceive or listen. To start with this was much easier if one concentrated on the breathing, as a distraction from thinking, to give the mind some chance to slow down and or stop thinking, breathing in Put, breathing out Toe, I think. After you reach state of mental silence by concentrating on breath, you start to the next stage, let go of the breath and just stop thinking, after you can master going with out thinking for long periods, you move on to object meditation, using your now able to be silent mind to concentrate on an object, like compassion, love, etc etc

I would be very interested if someone knows if this is a Thervada practice, as I honestly don't remember where I learnt it. And have studied in several traditions.

18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community that has so generously given me so much, sincerely former monk John

If you are not already familiar with it, the 40 classical meditation objects are listed in Vism.There is a section in A Comprehensive Manual of the Abhidhamma (Bh. Bodhi ed) that also enumerates meditation objects.

You may also wish to make contact with Stephen K (a member here) who produced a diagram of different meditation teachers/styles a few years ago. In fact, if you do a search here you might be able to find it.kind regards,

Ben

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.

In this PDF you can find a lot of (superficial) information on different aproaches to the practice of samatha and vipassana, even in each category you mentioned in your first list. I think both lists are very important.

He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' (Jhana Sutta - Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation)

Majjhima Patipada wrote:Anapanasati is a method I treat as both vipassana and samatha, but others may practice it differently. Does anyone have input about the classification of anapanasati from personal practice?

The many & sundry satipatthana modalities discussed here can probably all assist with the development of the awakening factors to some degree or other, but there aren't too many clear indications of the specific value of these disparate methods in the Nikayas. On the other hand, anapanasati is clearly stated to bring satipatthana to culmination, which in turn burgeons the awakening factors. Samatha-vipassana are developed in tandem, or as per rungs of a ladder perhaps, throughout any satipatthana.

I experience satipatthana as a mode of being-in-the-world with anapanasati having been specifically developed & delineated to facilitate jhana from that foundation. I'm not sure samatha-vipassana as practice modality groupings are quite accurate, in fact. The subjective sense that one or another is developing more than another isn't to be sought after; if an imbalance is noticed, it is to be redressed - not chosen.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]

In this PDF you can find a lot of (superficial) information on different aproaches to the practice of samatha and vipassana, even in each category you mentioned in your first list. I think both lists are very important.

Majjhima Patipada wrote:What would you call the practice (or set of practices) you do when you set aside time to practice?

If I've set time aside, it's anapanasati. If I haven't set time aside, I am striving to abide with satipatthana established with the result that there is mindfulness and distraction in turn, with increasing stretches of time spent well-established. I recall the metaphor of a drop of water falling onto a hot plate (SN 35.244) for the sudden re-establishment of mindfulness in this connection.

Metta et al is part of the experience of others; it's not a separate practice according to how I frame it, but rather gets brought along with satipatthana when other beings appear to the senses, according to the "protecting others protects oneself & vice versa" of SN 47.19.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]